


This Time

by Amalia Kensington (amaliak01)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Older Sherlock, Sherlock is a bit thick, Time Travel, romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 12:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5333357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaliak01/pseuds/Amalia%20Kensington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Consulting Detective,” the man finally spoke, his bright blue eyes catching the room’s light. “The only one in the world.”</p><p>It was impossible. </p><p>It had to be. And yet, the evidence was undeniable: Sherlock Holmes was sharing a flat with himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Luck That I've Had

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the properties found herein and this is meant for recreational non-profit use only.
> 
> Thank you to @writingwife83 for her help on this!

_See, the luck that I've had_  
_can make a good man_  
 _turn bad_

* * *

 

He knew the moment that he stepped in the front door that there was someone in the flat. A client would have had Mrs. Hudson buzzing around, either tsking at the detective’s tardiness in attending his business or busing herself with making tea to help the distraught that so often showed up at his door. So, not a business call.

 

It was not a new feeling for Sherlock Holmes to find that his home had been invaded. It was hardly the first time, and dare he say, it was likely that it wouldn’t be the last. He took the minute and a half traveling up the sixteen steps to try to figure out as much as he could from the person that was currently in his space: there wasn’t much.

 

_This could be an interesting day afterall._

 

The creak on the third step made any idea of a stealth approach useless, so Sherlock let himself into 221B with all the normality in the world, noting that there wasn’t anyone behind the door waiting to jump on him, at least. All further thoughts of a sudden need for exertion stopped when his eyes landed on the gentleman sitting in his chair. _Lounging_ , rather. Looking every inch like someone who belonged there. It made the hairs on the back of Sherlock’s neck stand on end, and he did not like the feeling in the slightest.

 

The man didn’t say anything upon Sherlock’s entrance, his eyes hidden in shadows as he was backlit with the light streaming in from the window behind him. However, there was still plenty to deduce. Octogenarian, a slight amount of arthritis in the knees and hands, a significant injury on his right side, hip most likely, perhaps the spine. Some sort of athletic background, runner perhaps, no, fencing; a bit of boxing in his much younger years (accounts for the arthritis). Lived well, though lines around the face and eyes spoke of decades of late nights and high stress job, and a lifelong smoking habit (off and on, most likely). Government official? Not pompous enough. Civil servant, then. Scotland Yard? Retired, obviously. Not familiar face, but might have not been in London. Regular legwork until more or less physically impossible..ah. Of course.

 

Sherlock sat himself across from the man, satisfied with his initial conclusions. He smiled politely. “So, what can I do for you Detective Inspector?”

 

The surprise that usually came with the delivery of a deduction wasn’t present, but neither was the usual annoyance. Instead, there was a slight smirk and the hint of an eyeroll.

 

“Consulting Detective,” the man finally spoke, correcting him in voice a bit raspy but deeply familiar and Sherlock felt all the air leave from his lungs as the man across from him leaned forward, his bright blue eyes catching the room’s light.

 

“The only one in the world.”

 

* * *

 

**TBC...**


	2. Haven't Had A Dream In a Long Time

_Haven't had a dream in a long time_

_see, the life I've had_

_can make a good man bad_

* * *

 

It was impossible.

It  _had to be_. And yet, he could not deny the evidence before him.

Sherlock Holmes was sharing a flat with _himself_.

For about two weeks now, the very real, very geriatric version of himself had been living on Baker St, making a general nuisance of himself, making every waking moment more and more infuriating on nearly every level.

And the adjectives were certainly problematic.

But no, oh no, that hadn’t been the worst of it.

There was, of course, the _flirting_.

No, not the admittedly hilarious attempts by Mrs. Hudson to catch her new tenants’ attention (that had been one of the few joys to behold). This was blatant, disgustingly open flirting with Barts’ best specialist registrar: Molly Hooper.

Molly, who thought that his “Uncle William” was “so sweet” and impressed that cleverness obviously ran for generations in the Holmes family. Molly, who would spend more time at the flat than was strictly necessary, that was more than willing to “lend a hand” with experiments in the kitchen (honestly, how was he supposed to get any work done with the mess and the _giggling_ ).

More than anything, Sherlock was disappointed at how she was missing what was right in front of her. John was understandable: he’d not spend much time around this older version to really suspect anything, and he’d always had a problem with observation anyway. Mycroft, of course, was still having a good laugh about the whole thing (“Time travel isn’t actually theoretical, Sherlock. The lasting effects and moral implications of it have made it...unavailable at present. However, it’s nice to know that we’ll get there sooner rather than later. Do give my best to _dear William_.”).

But Molly should have known better, she would have seen through him, like she always had…

Another laugh from the kitchen broke through his thoughts.

Enough of this. Sherlock placed his violin on its stand and walked back to stand at the door of the kitchen, taking in the scene: Molly and...William seemed to be mixing some sort of concoction together, their backs to him.

Molly was brushing what was obviously sugar from William’s chest and shoulder, apologizing for making a mess. The older man was smiling softly at her and waving away her apologies, going as far as squeezing her hand reassuringly before giving her forehead a kiss. No harm done indeed. They’d been baking an assortment of goods most of the afternoon, a loaf of rosemary bread cooled by the sink already beside a tray of unfrosted fairy cakes, and they’d just finished a batch of sugar cookies that had filled the flat with the sweet smell of vanilla and cinnamon.

Molly caught Sherlock’s glare into the kitchen and had made a face at him while William had turned away to wash his hands at the sink. Sherlock’s mouth twitched in response for a moment before rolling his eyes at the situation. She made her excuses soon after that, pecking William on the cheek and waving to Sherlock on her way out of the flat.

“It’s really disturbing to watch you, you know? And of course you realize that she’s just placating you. The flirting is nearly scandalous and more than a bit pathetic on your part, don’t you think?” Sherlock observed after Molly had left, flipping through the afternoon edition of the paper in the perfect picture of indifferent nonchalance. “Though well done with the impression of our actual uncle Arthur.”

“For godssakes, was I really this boring?” William mumbled to himself, irritation evident in his voice. “We’ve covered this already. What is going to take, Sherlock? Do I have to steal your phone and invite her on a date posing as you? What will happen then? I will only go so far, you know.”

“You’ll go as far as you need to, I know that,” Sherlock petulantly responded. “And I don’t have to tell you how badly something like that would end for everyone involved.” He scoffed and had a disappointed tilt to his head. “Really, did you think for a moment that would work?”

“Good lord, but you are _thick_. How, how could you possibly spend more that a few seconds in the presence of that woman, and not want to take her in your arms and make love to her immediately?” The older man narrowed his eyes. “You can’t. You don’t. I know exactly what you think and feel when you see her, what you do to hold her exactly at arms length, no farther but no closer.” A pause. “It’s a wasted effort, believe me. Won’t change, just gets buried under a guilt so strong it will only lead you to act desperately.”

“What is so desperate about it?” Sherlock snapped, finally losing his temper at this whole ridiculous situation. He stood up and tossed the paper aside, staring down the older version of himself. This whole thing was so ridiculous: why would he for a moment even consider using bloody time travel to go back make sure that he would ask Molly Hooper out on a date? “If it’s so bloody important, where’s Molly Hooper in your life, why are you here taking her in mine? Why does matter?!” he bellowed, frustration evident as he faced himself down.

“It matters because she’s _DEAD_!!” There was a sudden stillness after the declaration, heavy with emotion. William was breathing heavily. “She died in the most boring, most unfair way imaginable. Nothing to solve, nothing to figure out: she just never woke up again. How could it have been possibly fair that in this universe Molly Hooper would be dead while I was still alive? Sixty years, she waited, Sherlock. Sixty years for me to do something about that thing, the one that’s sitting right there.” He pushed a long finger hard against Sherlock’s chest. “That abominable thing that she loved so much. Too late, too long, human error, human error. But not hers, never hers. Mine.” He pushed harder until it was painful, but Sherlock didn’t budge. “ _Yours_.”

“I’m finally doing something about it, something I should have done long ago: I’m getting you to move.” William lowered his hands and balled them into fists, his emotions barely contained and it ached to see it all reflected back to him. “I know where this goes, I know where it ends, and it ends with her never being happy and you having to live with being the reason for it.” There was a pregnant pause. “I won’t allow it again.”

Sherlock collapsed into his chair, all the fight drained from him. He couldn’t fight himself, not someone who knew exactly what his thoughts would always turn to, every reason and excuse and horrifyingly dark turn of his mind palace. “You know,” he said quietly, his voice suddenly rough. “You better than anyone know why it must be this way, why there’s nothing that I’ve done that can make me close to--there was really no reason for you to be here for me. You should have gone back further, before any of this, made sure I never met her, never had her in my life. You could have done that for us.”

  
“You’ve missed the thing that’s been the most obvious, Sherlock: this isn’t about you, it’s not what I’m here for. No, not you, you deserve every bit of what’s coming to you, every miserable day, every lonely hour. None of this was ever for you: this was for her. Because if it’s the last thing I do, I will give my life to give her what she wants. And stupidly, incredibly,  _miraculously_ , all she’s ever wanted was you.”

* * *

 

**TBC...**


	3. Please, Please, Please

_So please, please, please_

_Let me, let me, let me_

_Let me get what I want this time_

 

* * *

He knows the moment she realizes that he’s in the flat. She’s paused in the doorway, the light of the kitchen silhouetting her in a warm glow as he sits in the dark of her sitting room. A bit dramatic, perhaps, but he felt it was appropriate.

“One day, I think you’re going to give me a heartattack,” she says with a sigh, but he can hear the fondness in her voice and he’s never consciously recognized how much he relied on it.   

He isn’t saying anything, knowing that she would come to him soon enough. She doesn’t disappoint, coming over to sit on the other side of the settee. “Are you ok?” she asks, after a moment.

“Are you happy, Molly Hooper?” his voice was rough and low, as if afraid to disturb something...maybe it was the thing that sat between them, that always sat between them, all this time. “Any regrets?”

“Sherlock, what’s wrong?” She avoids the question. They both knew what she regrets, and he was a bastard for asking, and yet she was still sparing his feelings, not voicing his failings when he gave her the chance.

Well, for once, he wasn’t going to take the easy out. “Regrets, Molly. Regarding me, specifically.”

“There’s--I mean, I don’t--” she lets out an exasperated sigh, clasping her hands together firmly in her lap. “I wouldn’t ever regret anything when it comes to you, Sherlock.”

He swallowed thickly. “Well.” He turned to look at her profile in the dark. “We both know that’s not quite true.”

She looks up sharply at that. “Sherlock--”

“Regret is a wasteful emotion, self-indulgent at best,” he interrupts her by standing up, momentarily wishing he’d left his coat on to emphasize his distress by swishing around him. “It rises from guilt, implying culpability, implying a level of control over thoughts and situations.” He ruffles his hair. “And of course there’s always a level of control, decisions that are made and consequences that need to be dealt with. It causes you to dwell on things that really are now outside of your control and it’s corrosive for the soul.” His words are coming faster and faster, but they suddenly halt when he feels her hand on his wrist, effectively stopping all his movements.

“What’s wrong, Sherlock?” she asks again, her voice low but firm, grounding him in the here and now.

Suddenly, he feels the full weight of everything that’s bothering him and he sinks back down beside her in a heap. “I don’t want to become William.” He admits quietly.

Her hand is still on his wrist. “Is there a danger of that?”

He knows that she’s not completely sure of what he means, but she’s doing her best not to make him lose his patience, and how many more ways can he prove himself to be an inadequate partner for such a person? He itches to leave, to put the comfortable armslength between them again, but he thinks of the old man back at 221B, with the cane and bad back, and frown lines where laughter could have been. “There’s a real danger, Molly,” he says honestly. “He hides the bitterness of his regrets well, but they’re there, just under the surface, _eating away_ until there’s not much left. It’s a bleak picture, indeed. For either of us.”

Molly is pensive for a moment. “I don’t know about there being nothing there,” she says finally, “In fact, I would say that there’s quite a lot that’s still rather good and kind in William. A truly bitter person isn’t someone anyone wants to be around, and William is...sweet and funny, and I like him very much.” Of course, how could he have forgotten? She’s Molly Hooper: she would see more than he can, sees what’s truly deep inside of himself. She sees him.

She sighs. “He’s just...he lost someone. There was someone in his life that’s gone now and it makes him sad. We talked about missed chances once. He didn’t say, but I could tell by the way that he talked about her: she’s gone and he never told her how he felt. It eats away at him, all of that, just like you said. But he’s not empty, not at all.”

She slides her hand from his wrist down to his own hand, covering it with hers. “There’s things that I sometimes wish were different, but Sherlock, I will never ever regret having you in my life and I really really hope that you don’t ever regret having me in yours.”

There’s silence between them for a moment. Somewhere in her flat, a clock ticks.

“Molly.” Sherlock turns his hand and laces their fingers together, feeling how her hand fits in his. “I love you intensely.” The declaration is simple and honest and there’s a relief in the words.

“Oh,” she breathes. She glances down at their joined hands, biting her bottom lip to repress a large smile.

She moves closed to him, leaning her head on his shoulder, curling into him and wrapping her other small hand around his arm. He can feel her short breaths and he can hear something like relief in her sigh before she speaks again. “I love you too, you know. Desperately.” He hears her sniffle and he reaches up with his free hand to wipe away a tear from her cheek. She kisses his palm before he pulls away and she settles against him once more. “You probably do know, but I thought I should tell you anyway.”

They sit together in a comfortable silence for a bit, his thumb rubbing over her knuckles.

“Sherlock?” Her voice is soft and she shifts a bit closer to him.

“Hn?”

“What happens now?”

“I don’t know,” he tells her truthfully. “I don’t like not knowing.”

He looks down at their joined hands and then chances to finally look directly at her. “Hadn’t really planned much beyond coming over here tonight.”

She smiles at that. “I see.”

In the dim light, he can see a hint of mischief in her eyes. He lifts a curious brow. “Ideas?”

“Maybe,” she replies quietly, letting go of his hand to turn towards him fully. She carefully cups his face with her hands and inches towards him, her intentions telegraphed a mile away, giving him an out, just in case this isn’t what he wanted. Which, of course, was not a concern at all.

Adjectives to describe the feel of this kiss flew all around him, changing and expanding the longer their lips were pressed together. This wasn’t like any of the times he’d kissed anyone else: there was a surge in his chest, tingling down to every place where they were touching and the familiar tug of a high. This, this was the feeling that he had understood made sentiment dangerous, and yet in this moment he had not felt safer and more desperate to never let this end. He knew in this moment, that he would always want Molly just like this.

He’s not even conscious of making the decision to slip his hand beneath her shirt to the skin of her waist when she pulls away.

“Dinner!” she announces, a touch too loudly, more than a bit out of breath, and the simple word makes him short circuit for a moment with the implication.

The look on his face must have given something away as Molly smoothes back his curls, biting her lower lip in a distracting manner as she did so. “I mean, for the two of us to go out to dinner. Like a date.”

“A date,” he parrots, pushing the sensations that she’s generating with something as simple as her fingers in his hair as far into the background as he can manage to catalog in his mind palace later. “You mean a ‘pick you up at seven, my how the weather’s changing, don’t be silly I’ll pay’ date? Like--” his brow furrows as her grin grows. “ _Ordinary_ people?”

She laughs genuinely then, not the nervous giggles that he’s grown accustomed to over the years, but the rare genuine laugh. It warmed something in him to know he was the reason for it. “It might not be so bad. At least until there’s a plan for what we’re doing here.”

He feels bold and confident when he leans forward again, nuzzling her just where her jaw met her neck, smirking as he noted her shiver against him. “I’m pretty happy with continuing to improvise.”

There’s the microsecond where he feels her giving in before she pushes him back by the shoulders more forcefully, looking directly at him with a stern look. “I think you should go home, Sherlock. Before we improvise our way into something neither of us is ready for.”

She’s right, he knows. He heaves a put upon sigh but leans forward to plant a tender kiss on her forehead. “Of course, you’re right. Between the two of us, you are the expert.”

Molly straightens his collar and smiles softly at him as he untangles himself from her and stands, moving towards the door and donning his coat.

He turns to give her a fond look, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear and she blushes prettily. Oh, that’s rather nice, actually.

The door is opened and he turns back around to face her at the threshold.

“Dinner.”

“Tomorrow,” she confirms.

“Text?”

“Yes, please.”

He turns to leave and hears the door shut softly as he walks down the hall.

He’s halfway down the stairs when it occurs to him, and he rushes back, knocking on her door frantically.

  
“There’s a place just off Seven Dials that will serve dinner until 1AM,” he says before she can ask any questions. He gives her his most charming smile. “You know what they say: there’s no time like the present.”

* * *

 

**TBC...**


	4. Good Times For A Change

_Good times for a change_

* * *

 

He paused in his reading of the latest draft of Molly’s article as he heard the creak on the stair.

 

Listening more carefully, Sherlock let his heart rate drop back down, recognizing the gait on the stairs.

The door opened and Sherlock watched as the last person in the world he would have expected to show up walked into his sitting room.

“Hello, _William_.”

“Sherlock,” the older man acknowledged, glancing down at the scene before him with a raised eyebrow.

Sherlock couldn’t help but smirk as he glanced down at the sleeping woman snuggled against him on the couch. He took a moment to run fingers lightly across her arm before carefully lifting her up and carrying her bridal style through into the bedroom. She shivered for a moment with the change of environment, but didn’t wake, settling down again with a contented sigh once he’d kissed her forehead. He allowed himself a moment to just look at her, before going out to join the other man in the sitting room.

“Molly sleeps like the dead,” he said as he re-tied his dressing gown, “But perhaps it was better if she were elsewhere for whatever you have to say.”

This other self’s eyes narrowed. “Keeping things from her are we?”

Their eyes met. “No,” Sherlock answered firmly. It had taken a while, but Molly knew all about the circumstances in which “Uncle William” had existed and what it meant. There was no one in the world that he’d ever felt that he couldn’t hide things from, but he wanted Molly to always have his completely honesty. Of all the ways that their relationship had changed, this was the one thing he was determined to keep constant.

“Now,” Sherlock went on, taking a seat at his chair and raising his fingers to his chin. “I’ve done what you couldn’t. So why are you still here?”

Sherlock had read up on the theories: Mycroft had been very forthcoming with the data that had been gathered thus far on time travel. The man standing before him was a paradox, since the course of time that created him had been altered.

William was holding the document that Sherlock had discarded just moments earlier, his eyes flying over the words. “I’ve never read this one,” he said, mostly to himself.

“It’s new,” Sherlock points out, more than a hint of pride in his voice.

“So it is,” came the reply. There was a silence between them for a moment, and Sherlock pushed down the feeling of anxiety at having the specter of the man that represented his failures still present in his home.

“I’m fading, Sherlock. I won’t be here for much longer,”William said, still looking at the paper in his hands. “The path that you’ve taken isn’t mine anymore, and soon it will be unrecognizable from anything I’ve ever known. Call it sentimental, perhaps, but I wanted to…” He glanced up and looked towards the bedroom. He frowns. “She’s going to be happy, Sherlock.” It wasn’t a request.

“Yes,” came the agreement.

A smirk. “Good.”

There was an awkward pause that neither man was comfortable with, so Sherlock rapidly got up and extinguished the fire that had been reduced to embers in the fireplace, realising that this was likely one of the many reasons that time travel was not made known to the general populous. Messy, emotional, and mostly a ghastly mess; and that had only been his personal experience. But he couldn’t deny the benefits, he thought with a small smile, noting a recent photo of Molly tucked into a corner on the mirror above the mantlepiece.

“So, tea?” he whirled around to ask in a more cheerful voice, determined to move on from...whatever this was.

He was met with the silence of an empty room. For a moment, he thought he heard the creak of the stair in the hallway, but later he would recall not being completely sure. What he was sure of was the cane that was propped up against the couch, left there as if just for a moment.

Sherlock picked it up in his hand, recognizing it more as a weapon than an aide for walking, but it was of fine craftsmanship. He hesitated for a moment with it before walking back towards the bedroom, his eyes adjusting in the dark. Molly’s breathing was even, but not that deep, the patterns of learning sleeping habits by close observation still delightfully new. He’d wondered for some time now how easily he could deduce about her dreams just by that.

He placed the cane in the furthest corner of the room, just within his line of sight before climbing into the bed and pulling the woman he loved into his arms.

As expected, she stirred, sensing his presence in her non-REM state, burrowing into his neck and placing a soft kiss on his pulse before settling down once more. Sherlock let his own breathing slow, letting himself relax into a contented sleep.

* * *

_Lord knows it would be first time_

* * *

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you for sticking with me! This was a little idea that was niggling away at me, and I really could have gone with a more detailed fic (I had a lot of IDEAS) but I think it works better this way. 
> 
> Thank you for all of your reviews, your words are lovely!
> 
> Until next time!


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